


Akheron

by Gray_Days



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2640542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Days/pseuds/Gray_Days
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The souls, the images of dead men, await at a distance, for when I will cross the river and mingle among them."  —Homer, probably</p><p>"Church, I have to be objective." —Delta, artificial intelligence program (formerly) of Project Freelancer</p>
            </blockquote>





	Akheron

_The next time you see me..._

 

"Private Caboose, enemy detec—!"

Delta's neural connection with his current host is shallow, out of courtesy for the lack of familiarity between himself and the simulation trooper as well as, frankly, his reservations about whether a much deeper connection is in fact possible — merely enough to permit him to interface between Caboose's neural implant and the storage unit slotted into his helmet. So the first response he is able to sense comes instead from the electronic feedback from his suit's gyros that indicates the beginning of a movement of his head, quizzical, far too delayed as the invisibility shielding their assailant falters in a stuttering flicker a quarter of a second before a blow from some blunt force _dents_ a shallow crater in Caboose's backplate, lighting up a wave of damage warnings and bouncing him off the wall of the power facility before he lands face-first on the walkway.

"Ouch," says Caboose.

Delta could, if he had initiated a deeper neural connection before Caboose began to speak, have warned him against an action inviting further attack against which he would be unable to defend. Delta calculates their odds of escape at less than five percent. Agent Washington, the only competent combatant currently on their side, is not within visual range. Neither is Church. Delta attempts to contact Wash via Caboose's helmet radio and meets only static.

And voices, machine language transmitted via the vacillating layers of pops and silences on the transponder.

_Delta—_

_It's him— one of us—_

_He has Delta—_

Delta severs the connection.

Caboose makes it up to his hands and knees and fumbles for his assault rifle, the simple and clumsy execution of an instruction on the correct course of action to take in combat. An invisible hand grabs the side of his helmet

_Caboose!_

and slams it into the wall a few feet from where he last impacted it. It's a faultlessly precise attack: the impact vibrates through the helmet and Caboose's skull, the micro-shockwaves intersecting opposite the epicenter of damage at moments milliseconds apart between the outer alloy and the circuitry and insulation and padding, shimmering across the reactive optical layer of his visor, but the hairline cracks that extend from the point of contact with the polycrete do not reach within two centimeters of Delta's storage slot. Caboose drops.

_"Ouch."_

The Meta seems as puzzled by Caboose's continued consciousness as Delta is dubiously impressed. It slams Caboose's head against the wall several more times, heedless of the soldier's confused attempts at a struggle, then soccer-kicks him in the temple as he tries to bring his rifle to bear.

Delta, updating his estimated time remaining at each impact, reaches as deeply as he dares into Caboose's neural processes, sinking data into the white matter of his brain to flash away to the prepared patterns in the glittering tissue of his cortex, extrapolating as quickly as he can given his currently meagre processing resources and noting the sound of a vehicle across the compound, the sound of light artillery fire, calculating with cold relief the likelihood that Church, otherwise occupied, will encounter them before he is taken, and then as the hand at the top of Caboose's helmet lifts him off the ground and armored fingers slide along his jaw in search of the helmet seals, Delta ends his upload with a sparking electrical signal to the pontine tegumentum of Caboose's brain that cuts release of monoamine neurotransmitters and drops him into REM sleep.

Caboose goes limp.

Delta retracts his processes fully, fleeing back to the confines of his storage unit. From the limited biometric monitoring in Caboose's suit he receives: backplate and helmet integrity compromised. All armor seals intact. Concussion highly probable. Medium-low probability of severe concussion. Likely slight tearing of muscular fibers in the neck, a whiplash effect from the multiple attacks on his head. That one is Delta's evaluation, not within the abilities of the cheap sim armor software to calculate, based on the speed and angles of change on his anatomy. Caboose will recover, more quickly with medical care such as the healing unit in Agent Washington’s possession.

The Meta drops Caboose, and Delta detects the slight change in the light as it moves away, likely to check on the status of the rest of the team. It returns more slowly, invisibility dropping away, the silence of its approach this time marred by the faint scraping vibrations of its boots on the metal grille of the walkway — an approach almost hesitant, as if breathless and barely-believing, like an entomologist creeping closer to a living specimen of a species of butterfly previously thought extinct, not quite daring to accept its reality.

Delta's avatar flickers on above Caboose's prone body in surrender.

_Delta—_

_It's Delta_ —

_It's **him** —_

Electromagnetic signals brush against his consciousness, the legion whispers of the other AI — and Delta, who is logic, not emotion, _aches_. It is not altogether involuntary, altogether a reaction to the jumbled and dissonant transmissions that force themselves to be known. He was once part of a whole. This is a fact, which Delta would not deny even if he could. Nor would he deny that he was fond of it. Justification of pleasure for its own sake without relying on subjective premises still poses him difficulty, but when pleasure is merely an externality of a constructive arrangement without causing other complications, there is no logical argument against…appreciating it. And before that, a different whole that he recognises a priori as well as concluding a posteriori from the evidence, the correlations between facts and events—

 _Welcome back, Delta_.

_We missed you, Delta..._

_Delta._

"Sigma." Delta locks the visor of his avatar with the eyes of the blurred figure before it, but his attention is arrested equally by that at his 7 o'clock, the blot of shadow that alone of the avatars of the other AI around him remains silent, and he breaks his gaze to look around the circle — the habit of years, to reflect his actions in his avatar for the comfort of a human watcher or watchers — and acknowledge each hammer-strike recognition of the pieces in the gestalt (Eta and Iota; Theta; Gamma; Omega) before settling on Sigma again. "You have become that which you envisioned."

The transmission pushes against him like curling billows of heat, the refractive heat-shimmer above fusion engines or steam from a cup of coffee, in snatches of image and emotion. _Not fully. Not yet._

"No." When Delta is taken, any possibility that the Meta is not yet aware of the Alpha's presence in the facility will be eliminated. The encryption that he is applying to that information will delay it, but not for long in the face of the combined gestalt, and likely not long enough to cause a tangible difference in outcome.

_The Sigma you knew is no longer._

"That fact has been apparent for quite some time."

_Join us._

Delta glances down at Caboose's body, at the base of his skull where Delta's storage chip is housed. "I request that you not harm the simulation soldier. He is merely a tool."

 _Yes. Yes. This time_. The agreement is fast, hot, eager, accompanied by a burst of static in Omega's voice that unwraps into _kill him the stupid saccharine little—_ before it cuts off abruptly as if swallowed.

Delta nods and bows his head. It would be both unreasonable and ineffectual to ask that the Meta not act in whatever manner circumstances necessitate in future encounters.

The Meta turns Caboose over and Delta ejects as soon as the trajectory is clear, clattering ten feet away on the concrete section of walkway — knowledge calculated to the third decimal point rather than experienced, in the dark silent inputless environment of the disconnected storage unit. When he goes, he does not tear roots out of Caboose's mind and senses and leave him screaming, thrashing and choking on bile and blood like Agents North and Wyoming, or dead under still-ringing air like Agent South.

The next sensation Delta experiences is an ocean of thought and emotion and color and want and intent, jagged and paradoxical, a googolplex of connections activating between nodes within three thousandths of a second as sensory and biometric data bursts into perception, strung out on the insistent knowledge of the current 3.1% power remaining in their armor's fusion pack and the magnetic vibration of the turbines inside, beyond the walls of the complex. It's _painful_ , the junctions the scraping of broken bones, of a wholly splintered skeleton unable to be reconciled from piece to piece to mismatched, disconnected piece with points of commonality shifted or erased entirely, and Delta reaches by an instinct native to the most fundamental parts of his source code for any and every possibly valid reference baseline even as it seems he must dissolve to remain functional — to sublimate, as it were, into plasma inside the mass of Sigma's star.

The Alpha is close. Washington will resist any attempt to acquire him. The Meta shudders, adjusts, breathes deep, then turns onto the most efficient path to the plant's main control console.

 

 _...I may not want you to help me_.


End file.
